THE promised economic legacy of the Ryder Cup was last night in doubt as Newport was named among the worst cities in the UK for empty shops.

New figures, published by the Local Data Company (LDC) yesterday, ranked Newport ninth for its soaring number of city centre shop vacancies.

The city fared worse than the northern England towns of Stockton-on-Tees and Rotherham, with 28.8% of units categorised vacant.

Town centre vacancy rates across Britain rose steadily from 12% at the end of 2009 to 14.5% at the start of 2010, according to the LDC report. However, vacancy rates in Newport shot up 13% in just six months – a period including the Ryder Cup – which was anticipated to boost its economy.

Within days of the golf tournament ending, major retailers Marks & Spencer, Next and Monsoon announced plans to withdraw from the city centre.

Retail expert Professor Brian Morgan, of the University of Wales Institute, Cardiff, said: “That is a really worrying development in Newport. It does suggest its town centre is getting less vibrant. There are some real problems there which you can’t just explain away by a massive increase in the size of stock.

“With the build-up to the Ryder Cup, these figures are at a time when the event was coming, Newport was in the vanguard of marketing promotions.

“Even against that backdrop they did not achieve significant results, but quite the opposite.

“They haven’t got it quite right in terms of marketing the city as an attractive business venue.

“They have put a lot of work into the railway station but it is still a problem area – access to the city centre is difficult. They really need to rethink the whole thing to make it that much more attractive to visit as a shopping experience.

“That’s what Cardiff has done which has made it a shopping experience – integrated with good restaurants and other things that people want to do.”

Ken Ellis, chief executive of Newport Chamber of Trade, said: “The market is suffering very, very badly from the lack of footfall.

“More and more businesses are closing who have been there for many, many years, and family businesses.

“Naively we thought those people who went to the Ryder Cup with their wives, the wives would go shopping all day. It doesn’t work like that, however. We were hoping, obviously, with the contractors and building on the whole site, we would benefit from that and afterwards people would visit the area. I’m not aware of any influx of visitors because of the Ryder Cup.”

Plans for the city’s £200m Friar’s Walk shopping development were shelved in 2009 after losing key investors. A shortlist of developers has since been invited to submit tenders for the scheme in John Frost Square and Newport City Council hopes to appoint a partner in July.

A spokeswoman for Newport council said: “We believe these figures are not a true reflection of the situation in the city centre as they include a number of properties in the John Frost Square area which were acquired by Newport City Council to make way for a new multi-million pound shopping scheme.

“We believe this project, and others in the pipeline, will revitalise the city centre which we recognise has suffered as a result of the downturn.”